


a myriad is a long time

by Anonymous



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Dios Apate (major), F/M, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Original Canaan House crew, Original Lyctors, Threesome - F/M/M, sexy parties mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:13:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29212479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He is God—but he is God in a body of flesh and blood, a body still moved by a craving for the corporeal, even after ten thousand years.
Relationships: Augustine the First/John Gaius | Necrolord Prime/Mercymorn the First, implied John/the entire original Canaan House crew pretty much, just god being horny, sorry this is a disaster to tag
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34
Collections: Anonymous, TLT Kink Meme





	a myriad is a long time

**Author's Note:**

> For the kink meme prompt: "Look, a myriad is a long time, and I just want God to jerk off." Unbeta'd. Takes place vaguely around the beginning of HtN.

It is quiet in the inner ring of the Mithraeum, and the King Everlasting, the Emperor Undying, the Necrolord Prime, is alone in his quarters. He stands facing the window, the expanse of space inky black, sprayed with stars.

Five other thalergetic signatures dot the Mithraeum, more activity than it has seen in decades, but for John Gaius, for now, it is blessedly still—even considering the complications posed by the newly-ascended Lyctors’ arrival. After his latest stint aboard the _Erebos_ , surrounded by Cohort soldiers and a constant flurry of paperwork and plans and personnel meetings, the Mithraeum’s grave-like silence is a welcome respite.

He has not had a moment to himself in some time.

And his body feels it; his body is wanting, a dull ache throbbing between his legs. He is God—but he is God in a body of flesh and blood, a body still moved by a craving for the corporeal, even after ten thousand years.

A body that still thinks of other bodies, a body whose mind now wanders back into the long recesses of its memory. There had been sixteen bodies, once—besides _her_ , of course, and he pushes the thought of her away, for now, because he won’t think of her like this, not now. Sixteen, in what seemed like simpler times, at Canaan House, when those bodies, their life and their love for him, burned as bright as Dominicus.

Flashes of memory surface, unbidden, sensuous. Cytherea’s gauzy dress slipping from her shoulder, sun-dappled in the terrace light. Anastasia’s dark eyes, her breath warm against his ear; Samael’s lean form, shirtless, running cavalier drills in the mirrored expanse of the training room. Cristabel and Loveday, stripping naked to leap into the pool, laughing, limbs glistening with salt water; Valancy Trinit, smirking, oil paint smeared roguishly across the ample swell of her exposed chest.

John’s hand slips into his pants, the other tugging down the zipper without shame. 

Once, he might have been ashamed to remember them like this, but if that shame had existed, it was long since dead.

He frees himself, fingers languidly stroking, and falls back into his mind’s eye.

Titania, coaxing, soft hands roaming. Nigella, always loyal to Cassiopeia, but he’d imagined how she might look, under those practical grey garments. Alfred is foggier, the recollection of his form muddied by the resemblance to his brother’s. Others are brighter, preserved in more precise contours. The absolute vision that was Pyrrha Dve is still clear as day—the low purr of her voice, every curve and plane of her body, remains seared into all their minds nearly ten thousand years later (and truly, some days, that memory alone is all John needs).

He lets out a sigh, palming up and down his length, thumb dragging over the head.

Lyctorhood had sobered his disciples, for a time—the realization of what it entailed, of what it set in motion. But they had packed up their things and fled to the Mithraeum, where they found solace in each other, in each others’ bodies, in each others’ eyes in foreign bodies.

And as the years passed—a thousand, then another—they discarded any last vestiges of shame, lingering qualms falling away to time as they lapsed into the ebb and flow of casual intimacy. Up and down the Mithraeum, from to John’s chambers to the Lyctors’ quarters—though never Mercymorn’s (“ _too much of a mess_ ,” she’d sniff)—to the kitchen table, the storage rooms, the hallways, pressed up against the walls of long-dead Cohort heroes’ bones. Sex became yet another dialect of their unspoken language acquired through the years—it was as much a way to defuse their tensions as a sparring session in the training room; it was Ulysses’ wild parties, fucking with wanton abandon; it was a quiet, curious comfort.

He was God and they were his saints, but they were flesh and blood too, and God, they were all beautiful to him.

Cyrus, Ulysses, Cassiopeia, before eternal sleep had claimed them—Cassy, wine-drunk, licking frosting off Ulysses’ bare chest; Cyrus, kneeling with John’s hands threaded through his golden hair.

Even Gideon—stoic, dutiful Gideon, who never deigned to join in on the _sexy parties_ , to indulge in the same carnal pleasures as his fellow saints—it would be a lie to say there hadn’t been moments where John had watched taut muscles stretch under brown skin, the gleam of those green eyes in that face, and felt his cock stir in his pants.

The memories blur together now, their edges bleeding into one another. Mercymorn, atop him, rosy hair escaping its pins, moaning, sheened in sweat. Augustine, behind him, sliding into him, perfect teeth biting at his shoulder. Cytherea, in front of him, soft lips parted naughtily, her narrow limbs spread wide, veins spidery under translucent skin as her fingertips skimmed across her body, impossibly fragile yet flushed and alive. 

God and his Hands—and now, his hand, alone, moving, falling into a rhythm, eliciting jolts of pleasure.

The barest noise escapes his lips as his breath picks up, his thoughts returning, as they often do, to the _Erebos_. Twenty years ago, or two thousand? Sometimes, a decade feels like the blink of an eye; sometimes, time stretches out into the enormous weight of the years, the endless drudgery of one day after another.

It had perhaps caught him by surprise. As his Lyctors’ numbers dwindled along with their hope, so too had their appetite for the prurient—or maybe it was just the natural consequence of living for a myriad, growing weary of the physical constraints of their meat prisons. One funeral, then another, then another had left Mercy increasingly snappish, Cytherea volatile, Augustine bitingly resigned, all slowly withdrawing into ten thousand years’ remnants of grief.

By the time his first two Saints came to him, that night aboard the _Erebos_ , it had been a long time. He had found himself so desperately wanting, even if only for a shadow of things as they had once been.

Even now, the sensations return to him vividly. Heat coils in his stomach now as it did then, remembering the hunger, the breath caught in his throat. Augustine, deftly undoing the buttons of John’s shirt, murmuring “ _my Lord_ ,” lips tracing feverishly along his jawline—Mercy, her back arching, his fingers circling and pressing into her. Augustine, tongue pushing insistently against his, tenderly removing the laurels from his head—Mercy, grasping him, guiding him inside her, wordless, her eyes wild with some need. Augustine, those elegant fingers, cupping his cheek, pressing bruises into his hipbones—Mercy, her entire body tense around him.

His strokes are urgent now, the memories along with them—Augustine’s mouth hot and wet at his throat, the hitch of Mercy’s breath, the bounce of her breasts as he thrust into her, once, twice, over and over and—

John gasps as he comes into his hand, and the universe yawns wide and empty before him.

**Author's Note:**

> My feelings toward John in this are summed up as: ***bonk* go to horny jail**
> 
> Shoutout to @DarkVeracity's compiled timeline of events for helping me structure this. Yes, sorry, G1deon’s no fun and/or only has eyes for Pyrrha and Wake. Yes, I realized that the amount of sex in this is not quite canon compliant in line with what John and Augustine say when discussing dios apate major at the end of HTN but let me have my old people fun. Maybe it's all just in John "King of Unreliable Narrators" Gaius's head 👁️


End file.
